The Journey to PWL

June 17, 2015 - 0 comments

When the average Canadian sets out to find a financial advisor, a firm like PWL is probably not what they have in mind. This should not come as a surprise. With the vast majority of Canadians’ invested assets continuing to be invested in expensive actively managed mutual funds, it is clear that we have not collectively caught up with the evidence. The evidence shows that there is one right way to invest, and it is documented in volumes of peer reviewed academic journals. Evidence-based investing is not promoted by most financial institutions and financial advisors because evidence-based investing does not generate lucrative commissions and trailing fees.

The financial services industry wants people to believe that investment advice involves smart people researching undervalued companies, picking hot stocks, and timing the market. People often seek financial advice because the hyped up world of investing can seem intimidating. In most cases, a person sets out not knowing what to look for in a financial advisor, so they end up settling on the one with the most compelling story about how their money will be invested. Compelling stories are detrimental to long term investing success, and in many cases it will take an investment lifetime of bouncing from one advisor’s compelling story to the next for an investor to realize that there must be a better way.

Many investors find PWL after taking years of unfounded advice based on the intuition of their past advisors. They may have read a book like Playing the Winner’s Game, The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read, or A Random Walk Down Wall Street, or they may have heard about evidence-based investing from a trusted friend or relative. We have grown accustomed to welcoming the weary who have come to understand, or decided to trust, that evidence-based investing is the only right way to invest. We do not sell, and we do not tell a compelling story about our superior predictive abilities and quantitative models. We build portfolios based on the science of capital markets, and consistently offer objective financial advice to those fortunate enough to have made the journey to our firm.